How has everyone been during the break? Have you survived without us? Well, no need to fear, no need to fret, our fearsome fifteen and the horroraddicts.net team are back this week.

Did you all enjoy Episode #140? It has been a little while so I will give you a reminder. The last episode was a bit of a change up from the “norm” and the writers were challenged to write a script. The script was for a spoof commercial for a make-believe horror product. This was a great way to stretch the writing muscles that are not normally stretched in the horror genre. The spoof had to be original and funny. The mini prize was to have their script professionally produced.

The spoofs that made it through to the semi-finals were Dead Fresh Air Freshener by Fiend, Earl King by Jonathan, The Spoof is Happening by AE…

Hey Horror addicts, we just had our fourth challenge in the horroraddicts.netNext Great Writer Challenge. The challenge for this episode was to write a 60-second commercial spoof of a make-believe horror product. Wow! This could be a fun challenge but it could also be very difficult. First of all, you must have a sense of humor and be able to get an idea across in a short period of time.

The contestants were judged on a comedy level, spoof product originality, and entertainment value. Luckily with this little project horror, comedy and 60-second spoofs can all go hand in hand. There are a lot of make believe products that monsters, ghosts or masked maniacs could use to make their jobs easier. For one thing, let’s talk about werewolves. Werewolves don’t get the respect they deserve so maybe what they need is a publicity agent. A werewolf publicity agent…

SPOOF #1 Dead Fresh air freshner by Fiend Gottes

A vampire father & young son are sitting outside under a full moon on a cloudless night, crickets are chirping, a wolf howls in the distance…
Son: Dad?
Father: Vhat son?
Son: Do you ever get that… not so fresh feeling?
Father: Bwahaha… but ov course! That’s why I use Dead Fresh.
Announcer: Do you struggle to keep the fetid stench of decay out of your clothes? Coffin? Your basement? Then Dead Fresh is just for you! Dead ten minutes? Ten centuries? Hiding one body or a thousand rotting corpses? Don’t worry, Dead Fresh kills even the strongest creeping stench of death! Just ask Pogo the Clown!
Pogo the Clown: I had dozens of corpses in my crawlspace for years and no one even knew! Thanks Dead Fresh! Dr. West: Hi, I’m Dr. Herbert…

Tim Reynolds isn’t just a fan of Jaime Lee Curtis, she went to his high school…or at least she did for her Prom Night, and Reynolds was there in the cafeteria to watch as a killer stalked her to the beat of bad disco music. The villain of his first novel, The Broken Shield, is Lucifer himself, while the heroine of his latest novel, Waking Anastasia, is a ghost. He’s worked in haunted hotels, reenacted the breakfast scene from ALIEN using real flesh, bone, and blood, and spent two years living a horror he still needs therapy for some thirty years later — teaching Third Grade.

This week was super interesting on the Next Great Horror Writer Contest. On the horrifying podcast there was a twist to what, I guess, most of us were expecting from this competition. This week’s challenge was to write a horror blog post. The non-fiction horror blogspot was judged on blog-ability, topic and writing quality. We were only given snippets of the top eight posts. But what were given makes me want to read more!

Hey Horror addicts, we just had our third challenge in the horroraddicts.netNext Great Writer Challenge. This episode’s challenge is to write a 500-word non-fiction blog post on something horror related. The contestants are judged on if it’s a good blog topic, topic interest and the quality of the writing. This seems like an easy enough task but the question is what is a good enough subject to write about.

You could compare vampire novels, you could say who is scarier Frankenstein or The Wolfman, or you could just write about your favorite horror novel or movie. These topics almost seem too easy though. A better nonfiction horror topic would be how horror movies have changed over the decades. Or why does something that people thought of as scary in the 1930’s, not scare anyone today? You could also write a fun topic such as why are bad horror movies…

This winner’s entry will be read an discussed in full
on the Cemetery Confessions podcast, June 2nd, 2017.

Here is just a taste of the blog:

“Imagine you enter a theatre in the year 2025 and take a seat. In front of you is a device that you place on your head and over your ears. Your vision is blackened. Thirty minutes of adverts begin because some things just never change. Eventually the film starts and you’re in a corridor where the lightbulb flickers and a putrid smell of rotting meat wafts to your nostrils. You are creeping forward when the light goes out completely. There’s icy breath on the back of your neck. You not only hear it but you feel it too…” Hear more on Cemetery Confessions June 2nd.

#NGHW 500-word Horror Blogs, The Runners Up featured on #139Daphne Strasert and Quentin Norris

# 2 HORROR BINGE by Daphne Strasert

Fear evolved to be a fleeting physical reaction. Fight or flight is only supposed to last long enough to escape danger. Psychologically speaking, humans aren’t built to endure hours of sustained terror. Yet, whether it’s Penny Dreadful or Stranger Things, horror addicts love to curl up with Netflix for a marathon of dread. Watching horror isn’t like it used to be. With the rise of streaming services, the horror genre faces the new challenge of binge-watch culture. What effect does this medium have on scare factor and can it take horror to new heights?

How did we get here?

Before streaming, television horror was constrained by weekly time slots. Creators had to contend with an unreliable audience, so they structured series for casual viewing. Shows adopted a…